Getting OS X 10.11 El Capitan printing to a color Ricoh MP C2503

This is nominally flying related (’cause, IDK, printing approach plates and charts...) Mostly I just wanted to create a permanent record somewhere of the incantations required to get this to work.

Problem: The Ricoh MP C2503 printer at the office doesn’t have Postscript installed (verified on the Configuration Page, which, under System Reference, lists “Printer Language[s],” in this case, Adobe PDF, RPCS, PCL5c, and PCL XL, but no Postscript). The official Ricoh driver for OS X is a Postscript Printer Description (“PPD”) file. Not useful if your printer doesn’t support Postscript.

Apple does ship a “Generic PCL Printer Driver” with OS X, but it only prints in greyscale, and I needed color support.

Solution:

$ foomatic-rip --version
foomatic rip version 4.0.6.230
"man foomatic-rip" for help.
$ gs -v
GPL Ghostscript 9.19 (2016-03-23)
Copyright (C) 2016 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
$ cupsctl WebInterface=yes


  • Browse to http://localhost:631
    • Under “CUPS for Administrators” click “Adding Printers and Classes”
    • Under “Printers” click the button [Add Printer]
    • If prompted for a username and password, login as a user with administrative privileges on the Mac (e.g., "bob" / "password4bob")
    • In my case, I selected “LPD/LPR Host or Printer” and clicked the button [Continue]
    • In my case, the printer is on IP address 192.168.1.41, and I used the ‘default’ (lp) queue: lpd://192.168.1.41/lp
    • I gave the printer a legal name (“Ricoh_MP_C2503_pxlmono”)
    • I configured it as a Make: “Generic” and Model: “Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlcolor (en)” printer.
    • On the Defaults screen, I changed Printout Mode to “Normal”
  • Run Matt Broughton’s excellent yosemite_foomatic_paths.command (available: https://gist.github.com/coffeesam/578d7b6beef0fbda975a or http://tinyurl.com/oepe5go [yosemite_foomatic_paths.command.zip]), which will come up in a Terminal.app window (if prompted for a password, if you’re an administrator, punch in your own password, e.g., password4bob):
The printer queue Ricoh_MP_C2503_pxlmono should be modified.
Do you want to continue? (y,n)  y
  • In Terminal.app, sudo to ‘root’ and append a line to the /etc/cups/cups-files.conf file, then stop and restart CUPS (same password as above):
$ sudo -i
# echo "Sandboxing Relaxed" >> /etc/cups/cups-files.conf
# launchctl  stop org.cups.cupsd
# launchctl start org.cups.cupsd

Voila, you’ll now have color PCL printing to the Ricoh (or whatever PCL printer you have that needs pxlmono + foomatic-rip + ghostscript to work under OS X)...


Update: With the paper size set to 'letter' I was getting complaints from Word, etc., that my margins were bad, and sure enough, when I printed from my standard templates the bottom 1/2" or so was cut off. Setting the paper size to "Custom" 8.5"x11" instead of Letter appears to have solved that problem:


Update to the Update: I was still having margin issues, and Word wasn’t letting me set the non-printable area greater than .5" from the top/bottom, .25" from the sides. I did some PostScript math (72 points = 1", my templates assume .17" non-printable margins) and came up with 12 12 600 780 as the printable boundaries that should work. I then looked at the PPD for the Ricoh Aficio 3510sf I have at my home office, and lo and behold, the dimensions were identical...

Here’s my fixed, working “Letter” page definition / imageable area PPD, which should live at /etc/cups/ppd/Ricoh_MP_C2503_pxlmono.ppd


cd /etc/cups/ppd
sudo vi Ricoh_MP_C2503_pxlmono.ppd
    *DefaultImageableArea: Custom.8.5x11in
    *ImageableArea Letter/US Letter: "12 12 600 780"

(The PPD specified, before it was edited: *ImageableArea Letter/US Letter: "18 36 594 756")

Now, all my (admittedly pretty annoyingly technical) templates print properly again, with no footers cut off.

macOS Sierra Update

I did an upgrade-in-place to Sierra and the Ricoh stopped working. It seemed to send prints out, but the printer never received them or spat them out. Followed Apple's simple process to reset the printing system (which, annoyingly, nuked all the printers I'd installed) and more or less followed the above steps to reinstall it. Didn't have to reinstall foomatic or ghostscript. Did have to re-enable the cupsctl WebInterface, and walk through the steps to re-add the printer. This time, instead of a generic PCL printer, I set it up as a Ricoh MP C2500 PXL (which I believe is PCL XL, and not the "PS" version, which I'm pretty sure is PostScript, which my printer doesn't have). Set up this way, I didn't have to modify the .ppd file at all, it was already setup with the 12 12 600 780 printable area. Everything's working again, in color.

Comments

  1. Thank you! Also works on 10.11 with C3000.

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  2. At last! Two years searching every now and then for a final solution, and I can confirm now that the office printer (Ricoh MP C3001) is working flawlessly now on macOS Sierra and last week on El Capitan.

    Thank you very much!

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  3. When that color print came out of my MP C4000 I jumped for joy. Thank you so much for posting this.

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  4. Brilliant solution. Thanks for the clear steps. I had this working in an older version of macOS, but with the upgrade everything fell apart (tried an earlier versions of yosemite_foomatic_paths.command, but it didn't fix the issue). Thanks for this.

    By the way works on multiple versions and types of Ricoh printers in my office)

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  5. Thanks! it worked really nice, I got one question, is it possible to make it print to 300dpi instead of 600dpi?

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  6. Tried all these steps with a Ricoh MP C5501 (Gestetner) and so far no luck... print jobs queue but nothing ever comes out of the printer. New Mac with Sierra pre loaded. Are there any logs I can inspect to see what the issue might be?

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  7. UNBELIEVABLE!!! Thank you so much!!!

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  8. This seems to work, but it's very slow. In my CUPS web interface, I see a 153kb job spooling and it takes about 5 minutes per job. Any way to troubleshoot this?

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  9. This seems to print images with black backgrounds behind them :(

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. Nope. On a clean Sierra install, still getting the dreaded "filter failed" error :-(

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. Install hpijs-3.10.6.dmg (5.1 MB), Foomatic-RIP 4.0.6 (668 KB) and Ghostscript 9.20. Selected generic print pcl5Foomatic /hpijs-pcl5c.
    And run last command "yosemite_foomatic_paths.command".
    Good luck ;-)

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  14. Hello

    This isn't working for me. Did everything right up until running the yosemite_foomatic_paths.command and then it returns this:

    Last login: Tue Feb 7 15:10:27 on ttys000
    PROPERTUITYs-MacBook-Pro:~ Luke$ /Users/Luke/Downloads/yosemite_foomatic_paths\ 3.command ; exit;

    OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) introduced extra sandboxing. This caused
    printers using the foomatic-rip and ghostscript packages from
    OpenPrinting to fail. This script will amend the PPDs of
    current printers that use foomatic-rip so they will work.

    The changes made will only work on some of the packages from
    OpenPrinting. It is believed that the following users of the
    following packages will be able to print after applying this
    patch:
    hpijs min12xxw
    pxlmono/pxlcolor (Ricoh, Lanier, NRG and others)
    samsung-gdi pnm2ppa

    You need to run this script from an administrator's account
    and you will be prompted to enter your password to make the changes.
    PLEASE NOTE THAT NOTHING WILL APPEAR ON THE SCREEN
    AS YOU ENTER YOUR PASSWORD.

    This script is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty
    of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


    No printers match the modification criteria.
    logout
    Saving session...
    ...copying shared history...
    ...saving history...truncating history files...
    ...completed.

    [Process completed]

    Please advise?
    Dean

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  15. Install hpijs-3.10.6.dmg (5.1 MB), Foomatic-RIP 4.0.6 (668 KB) and Ghostscript 9.20. Selected generic print pcl5Foomatic /hpijs-pcl5c.
    And run last command "yosemite_foomatic_paths.command", and run :
    $ sudo -i
    # echo "Sandboxing Relaxed" >> /etc/cups/cups-files.conf
    # launchctl stop org.cups.cupsd
    # launchctl start org.cups.cupsd

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  16. This is freaking awesome very very much appreciated.
    This method works until today.

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  17. worked like a charm ! Thank you very much !!!

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  18. Been using this solution for a while but always had the issue where it prints images with black backgrounds behind them, including the colour wheel on the printer test page.

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  19. Apparently, prints from photoshop go though just fine, but if I'm printing from "preview" or using the system dialogue, I keep getting "filter failed" any idea how to fix this?

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  20. You are a life safer! Thank you very much for your work.
    Btw.: I've upgraded to High Sierra and all I had to do is setup the printer in CUPS web interface again and then run the yosemite script again. Printer still works fine (it's a Rioh MP C2011).

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  21. Many Thanks. After being quoted $500 for a Sharp PS KIT, this was an absolute life saver. Worked for my Sharp DX2500N MFP.

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  22. after long searches without success :-)
    works perfectly !
    Thanks a lot

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  23. hi Guys! I need some helps with an Infotec isc2525 (no ps installed). I followed all the steps but with driver isc2525pxl but the printer seems not receiving any files.any suggestion will be highly appreciated, thanks!

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  24. Hi all, I had initial success with getting the Sharp MX-3110N to print with High Sierra but a few days ago the system started complaining that "The printer software was installed incorrectly. Please reinstall the software for this printer or contact the manufacturer for assistance."

    Did anyone else encounter this problem and know how to get around it?

    Thanks!

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  25. Wow dude. thank you so much for this. Was struggling with a VIP client's Mac only to find out that their damn printer doesnt have PS installed when i got to their offices.

    Life saver!

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  26. Any tips to get this going on Mojave?
    I have been successful with this workaround for El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra.

    I upgraded to Mojave and lost my printer

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  27. The same here, with OS X Catalina, first think I had to install a new version of Ghostcript because the old one is 32 bits and Catalina says binary not compatible with CPU architecture, but I am stuck there.

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  28. For Catalina I had to install 64 bit Ghostscript, download source code for and rebuild foomatic-rip under 64 bit, which required removing a couple of header file references to get it to compile... then follow pretty much the same steps. I've found that any MacOS update breaks the Sandboxing step, so you have to do that part again after every upgrade, even the minor dot releases.

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